by Alexis Bass
“Imagine if we had tangible proof that Jasper’s not a credible witness,” I say. “Proof of something she doesn’t want anyone to know about. We’d have more leverage to bargain with her.”
“You mean threaten Rob?” Theo says.
“She started it,” I say.
“This is messed up, especially coming from you, Collins,” Stewart says.
Theo tentatively looks at Jasper, unsure how Jasper will react to it. Jasper agreed to charm her over the phone, to try to get her confession by saying whatever was necessary. It would be different in person; we all understand this.
I hate to think it, to admit it, but I can see so clearly how to get what we want from Rob. The trap we’d have to set. More proof that I’m Rosie’s daughter after all. Scheming and sneaky, taking high risks to get what I want. Rosie doesn’t want Rob to authorize the proposal, and this to me is another reason we should do whatever it takes to force her to authorize it.
“If we have real proof that Jasper’s an unreliable witness because he’s romantically involved with Rob, then we’ll give her a choice. Either she accepts my father’s proposal or we expose her relationship with Jasper. If she doesn’t agree, then it discredits Jasper for the trial, but more importantly, it discredits her in the eyes of her team, her investors. There’ll be no getting around those rumors that she hired him as an intern to be with him. We present her with those options and she’ll have no choice but to authorize the proposal to save face, even if she has to lose her life’s creation.”
There’s an edge to the way the three of them are watching me, like they’re shocked there’s this viciousness inside of me, that I would put Jasper on the line like this. But I’m waiting for them to see that this ruthlessness comes from caring about Jasper. I’m waiting for them to also realize it’s what’s best to keep their families’ investments. Jasper leans toward me, his expression opening, like he can see that this desperation, these wild ideas, really are a representation for how much he means to me.
“It was worth a shot,” Jasper says. “But what if she matches our threat with one of her own?” He’s worried that she’ll retaliate by releasing the recording of Jasper cheating.
I don’t have an answer to that except to say that she went so far as to have him followed at Hylift, and even if it was only to catch him alone to threaten him, I saw pain in her expression when he ran out into the storm to get away from her, the way she cried, like something about him still gets to her. But I don’t say that. I don’t say anything.
“I’ll think of something else,” Theo says. “I promise.”
Jasper nods. “Okay.” He sounds like he actually believes Theo. Like maybe he’s relived for the alternative to my plan.
We leave shortly after, heading outside into the dark to make our way back to Rutherford. Stewart holds the lantern as we traipse through the trees. I thought Jasper and I were blindsiding Stewart and Theo by having our own plan to record the call. But I missed a lot about the entire situation. The details of the lawsuit. And the proposal.
“Could I see the proposal?” I ask Theo. He said he’s read it many times. He said it’s the best option. “You have a copy, don’t you?”
Under the low blaze of the lantern, I catch Stewart eyeing Theo.
“I’d like to see it, too,” Jasper says when we’ve taken a few steps and they still haven’t answered me.
“All right,” Theo says. “I’ll send it to you.”
“Are you sure?” Stewart says to Theo, keeping his voice low.
“Yes,” Theo says, irritated.
“How exactly did you get the proposal?” I ask. Neither of their parents were privy to the meetings where my dad was presenting it.
“Collins, how do you think?” Theo says. “It’s probably against protocol, but your dad gave my mom a copy. Special privileges, I guess.”
“Okay, okay, I get it,” I say.
“Theo, was that really necessary?” Jasper says.
“So you’re dating, and your parents are dating,” Stewart says, chuckling. “We’d better do something about Robames so they can afford all the therapy you’re going to need.”
We reach the path to the dormitories and let Stewart and Theo go ahead of us.
“I’m sorry,” Jasper says, slowing his pace.
“What are you sorry about?”
“It’s all my mess. My shitty past with Rob. My family’s horrible debt. My parents’ awkward arrangement.”
“But I don’t care about any of that.”
“Are you sure? You don’t think less of me for cheating—for not coming clean about it? You don’t think I’m a horrible person?”
“I don’t think that at all.”
Sometimes I want to tell him everything. Let my own secret out into the ether. I know this terrible thing about him, and I still can’t help how I feel toward him. But my secret is different from his. If I told him the truth then he’d know that the person who was supposed to love me no matter what left me for seven years and only told me the truth when she could pad it in lies and because she needed something from me. And I fell for it, I fell for all of it. How am I supposed to lay out all the proof I have that love is contingent on money and security and success and status and expect him to believe me when I tell him that I don’t care about any of those things when it comes to him?
“Are you okay after talking to Rob?”
“I hate who I am with her. Even during that short call today, I was unhinged. I don’t want you to see that side of me.”
“I want to see every side of you.”
He grabs my waist and leans down so our foreheads are touching. I brace his shoulders with my hands.
“I want to see every side of you, too,” he says. “Promise me you’ll show them to me.”
I nod. I tilt my head upward and kiss him as my answer.
But there are things I don’t want him to ever know. The parts of me that are unlovable. The part that was easy to use and easy to erase and easy to leave. Whatever it was about me that Rosie didn’t want, I hope to hide from him for as long as I can. Forever, maybe.
Forty-five
My dad’s Robames proposal is long and boring, and as Jasper taps absentmindedly on my leg as he reads next to me, it’s hard to concentrate. We’re in the common room sitting on one of the couches facing away from the hall. We sit close so we can both see the proposal on my laptop screen. It’s early—classes don’t start for another thirty minutes—and we’re the only students here.
“It’s essentially saying that they want to take the Roba-Fix off the market and turn Robames Inc. into a research facility,” I say. Jasper makes figure eights over my tights.
“It’s a very good idea.”
“You think it could work?” I lean into him. His fingers stop moving, and his hand lies flat against my leg.
“Absolutely.” He scrolls back a few pages. “I mean, look at this. Thanks to all the research Rob insisted on, she’s built one of the most advanced facilities in the world. They’ve collected thousands, if not millions, of DNA samples from people with these specific chronic illnesses—the kind that the Roba-Fix was designed to help.”
“It doesn’t look like any other company would be able to compete with her in this arena either,” I say, scanning the screen. The warmth of his hand spreads through me. I turn so I’m angled against him and watch as his body responds by turning toward me, too.
“She wouldn’t be directly responsible for a medical revolution, but selling this research to pharmaceutical companies might help give someone else headway into creating one.”
“Not to mention, the amount they’d pay for it.” I point to the graph of forecasted sales. They aren’t in the billions like the Roba-Fix was projected to make, but they’re in the millions.
“With hardly any competition,” Jasper says. He lays his arm across me, and I feel like an electric current is shooting through me.
I read the chart of similar companies, and he’s right. A
ccording to my dad’s calculations, Robames the research company would be able to offer more than any of the other businesses.
“Wait,” I say, my finger hovering over a familiar company listed as a top competitor. Spectacle Barkley—from Rosie’s messages to my dad. I can’t afford to lose what I’ve put into Spectacle Barkley, but you can afford to lose Robames Inc. I don’t understand. “I thought Spectacle Barkley was a company that told chronically ill people what they should eat to stay healthy based on their DNA. Why would they be considered a competitor?”
“Oh yeah,” Jasper says. “That’s just the service they offer to get DNA samples. Spectacle Barkley’s real profits come from selling their research to pharmaceutical companies that need them for testing when developing drugs.”
This explains Rosie’s motives, the details of the money she was seeking all along. If Rob accepts my dad’s proposal and turns Robames from a retailer into a research facility, it will put Spectacle Barkley out of business. Rosie would lose her investment. If Robames were to collapse under the lawsuit, Spectacle Barkley would stay the leading research facility in its field.
Rosie wanted me to get Mrs. Mahoney away from my dad because Rosie thought he would do what she asked and let Robames fail if Mrs. Mahoney wasn’t so dependent on it. You’d do this for me if you weren’t with her. And she wanted to put me right in the middle to entrap Mrs. Mahoney by using her sons’ secrets and their happiness to threaten her.
“What’s wrong, Collins?” Jasper says. “It’s a perfectly legal practice.”
“Oh, I know,” I say, forcing a smile. “So there’s no real competition, then.” The ideas in the proposal are sound, which means that if we were to try again to convince Rob to accept it, we have even more selling points to offer. If Rob decided to suddenly listen to reason. “Perfect.” I yank on his tie, and we both glance over the back of the couch to confirm the hallway is empty. I grab him as he kisses me, holding him to me as we fall back on the cushions.
What would he think if he knew what I’d agreed to do to him, to his brother? What would he say if he knew it was the reason I’m here with him right now, like this? Would he believe that I never would’ve been able to go through with it after getting to know him?
These thoughts follow me around like a haunting.
That night, Theo leaves us ten minutes early from the gym, which is nice of him but also gets him out of cleaning up the equipment. The second the door clicks shut, Jasper pulls off his gloves and presses me against the bag, and I don’t even mind that the wrap still around his hands is rough and sweaty.
I don’t deserve any of this, I think.
And when we study in the private rooms of the library, which aren’t really private at all because of the glass panels on the doors and the casual strolls down the corridor Ms. Lata does every once in a while, it’s all ankles hooked under the table and finger squeezes across a smattering of books and notepads. Sometimes we’ll sit next to each other and I’ll be thinking of nothing else except his hand on the back of my chair, almost touching me, the way I can feel the heat from his body and smell his laundry detergent, and an hour will pass and I’ll have only read one paragraph and won’t remember what it said and I’ll have to do the reading under my covers with a flashlight after the eleven o’clock check-ins, but I won’t even care because being near him was sixty minutes that I didn’t deserve, not when I’m only this close to him because I wanted something valuable to take away from him. He always notices when I’m tired the next day, and he’ll quiz me so I can study through the fog of his slow smile and the sandalwood scent of his shampoo and the way his hand occasionally grazes my knee.
It should be freeing to put Rosie’s plan behind me, to abandon her the way she abandoned me. All Jasper will ever have to know of me is what’s happened between us. And whatever will keep happening between us. But it’s no use. I can’t stop wondering: I know all his secrets, but what would he say if he knew mine?
I’m often jolted awake right before dawn, with this overwhelming sense of displacement.
“What’s wrong?” Elena says when my jerky movements wake her.
“Stress,” I tell her.
“Are you still worried about failing out? I thought you were doing so much better.”
“I am. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” But the nightmares aren’t about failing out of Rutherford anymore. They’re only about losing him, waiting for the moment when this will all expire. I don’t know when it’ll end with him. But it will end, won’t it? Doesn’t it always?
When Rosie told me to make him love me, is this what she’d had in mind? Can you sweep someone else away without getting swept up yourself? What are you supposed to do when you’re the one who cast the spell but not the one who has the power to break it?
I know the secret to his undoing, but I fear that he’s the answer to mine. Because sometimes in the bad dreams, the thing I’m losing feels like it’s something I’ve already lost—like Rosie and Mimi—and I wake up wondering if he was ever mine at all.
We all get the email about Rutherford’s upcoming Open House on a Monday morning. No one talks about it because it’s boring, a weekend for our parents, for potential students. But there are pointed stares between Theo and Stewart across the courtyard. A solemn nod my way. Jasper’s hand stiff against my back. We don’t talk about it. But we all saw it. We’re all thinking about it. It follows us around. The possibility and the hopelessness, both existing together. Theo doesn’t finish his dinner and knocks over his drink, spilling iced tea across Anastasia’s beet and goat cheese salad. Stewart forgets his lacrosse stick in his locker for practice. Jasper sighs against my neck behind the athletic complex as the sun goes down. Rob James is coming for the Open House. A guest—the main event. She’ll be at Rutherford in no time. And what are we supposed to do? What can we do?
Two Months Later
It pains me, the way he slumps to the ground. The way he caves in on himself.
“You know this is all more complicated than you think,” he says. He begs. “You know you don’t have to do this. All you have to do is stop. I know you, and I know this isn’t going to sit right with you. Go back on your word, forget the promises you made before you knew me, before you knew us.”
But he can already see it in my eyes—because it’s true, he does know me—that I’m not going to stop. No matter how much it puts him at risk. I’ll make good on everything I swore I would do. Every last thing except for the millions of small, unspoken promises I made to him, each day that I spent getting to know him.
Forty-six
There are two times a year when Rutherford likes to show off. The first one happens during orientation, and the second at the end of February, when Rutherford hosts spring sports opening tournaments and displays students’ artwork at the galleries in the square and the theater department wows with a musical production and the choir and orchestra and band dazzle with their performances. And successful Rutherford alumni come to talk about how Rutherford shaped their very bright futures.
This is what will bring my father and Mrs. Mahoney to Cashmere tomorrow. And Rob James.
“There’ll be a surprise,” my father tells me on the phone, not sounding all that happy.
“I like surprises.” I try to be upbeat, like maybe he’s afraid his surprise isn’t good enough.
We’re walking back from the athletic facility after practice when I tell Anastasia, Ariel, and Theo what he’d said. They try to guess what the surprise could be.
“He’s finally going through a proper midlife crisis and has bleached his hair,” Ariel says.
“He’s revealing his identity as a CIA operative,” Anastasia says. “What? I know a girl who that happened to.”
“He’s probably bringing you flowers or chocolates or maybe just plain money,” says Theo.
We reach the courtyard, and the parents have already started filtering in, observing us students like we’re part of the show, taking photos of the Rutherfor
d view and the architecture and the statues like this is a tourist destination. I wave as we pass Jasper where he’s stationed in the courtyard under a maroon canopy with a lacrosse display, handing out pamphlets, answering questions. It’s cloudy today and windy, and the weather is still chilly, though mild, not dropping too far below forty degrees or rising above sixty degrees.
At first, I think my mind is playing tricks on me when I notice them standing there near the edge of the courtyard.
“I thought your dad wasn’t getting in until Friday,” Theo says.
“Hey, who’s with your dad?” Anastasia says, seeing them also.
I stop walking. Anastasia, Ariel, and Theo take a few steps before turning around, realizing I’m no longer keeping pace with them.
“What’s the matter?” Ariel says.
“Collins?” Theo calls. But I’m already running away, ducking into the nearest entrance. The problem is there are people everywhere; the hallways are overcrowded. I rush up the stairs and into the library. Only after I’m closed off in a private study room can I finally take a breath. I fist my hands, press them together. They’re shaking so hard, terror pumping through me.
What are they doing here? Mimi and Rosie strolling through the campus arm in arm with my dad. Why are they here?
I don’t want to see them, I don’t want to see them, I don’t want to see them.
I startle when my phone buzzes in my cardigan pocket. Jasper.
Hey, are you okay? Where’d you go?
There’s a light knocking on the door, and I jump. My phone falls to the ground. Sebastian is on the other side of the glass. He steps into the room.
“You ran in here like a bat out of hell. Thanks to you, tomorrow the library is going to be crawling with those WALK, DON’T RUN signs that hang around the pool.”
I try to smile at him, give him the laugh he deserves. But I start to cry, sobs charging out of me, a flood of tears.